Climbing to the top of the mountain is always a worth accomplishment. Perhaps the one disadvantage to it is that getting back down to Earth can be a bit of a long fall.
In high school athletics, the teams and programs that truly possess a competitive mindset are the ones that want to climb right back up.
That’s what the Lewis-Palmer girls volleyball team is going through right now. The program had reached the highest of mountains, rattling off six state championships in seven years. That run ended last spring when district rival Palmer Ridge claimed the Class 4A crown. The Bears have a chance to repeat this year and the Rangers (9-14 overall) are in a position they haven’t been too familiar with.
Young players have to step up sooner than they’ve been asked to previously and when regionals kick off this week, L-P is on the road rather than playing at home.
This Lewis-Palmer volleyball has to re-learn the art of competing.
“That hits on it pretty well,” coach Wade Baxter said. “Obviously we had really strong teams for many years but a lot of cumulative graduations of D1 talent and everybody having to step up a little quicker than they would have if they had come along in the program six years ago (have hurt us).”
In previous seasons, there have been standouts that every opponent had to fear as the Rangers were cashing in state title chance after state title chance. This team is all about finding success by committee. Four players in Kiley Gennerman, Kendall Burnett, Hope Esposito and Amya Speller have over 100 kills each.
These are some of the players that Baxter feels wouldn’t have had to contribute key roles this early in their careers but with Esposito being the only senior of the group, it should make them very battle ready for regionals as well as next season.
“The energy our team brings stays the same over the years,” Gennerman said. “It’s been fun playing with this team.”
Playing with this team in this league can make for a challenge all in its own. The 5A/4A Pikes Peak Athletic Conference is no slouch in the volleyball world. The league boasts the defending 5A champion in Rampart and the defending 4A champion in Palmer Ridge. In fact, every 4A champion since 2008 has come out of the current makeup of the PPAC, whether it’s Cheyenne Mountain, Lewis-Palmer or Palmer Ridge.
Rebuilding can certainly be a tough task in the Colorado Springs area.
“We lost a lot of players and it’s just a new team,” Speller said. “We just have to re-learn to compete against these teams.”
After getting through the PPAC gauntlet, the Rangers competed at the Cheyenne Mountain Volleyball Tournament and took on more top teams in the form of Chaparral, Windsor, Eaton and Longmont.
The Rangers enter 4A regionals as the No. 18 seed and have to get through Erie and Canon City to advance to the state tournament at the Broadmoor World Arena. If there is one benefit of going through this season with a schedule that has just been brutal, it’s that this team could be ready to for anything either set of Tigers are able to throw at them.
“It’s nice when you step on the court and don’t see a front line of 6-3, 6-2, 6-2,” Baxter said. “I think back to some of the 4A schools that we played in non-conference and at our tournament early in the season and those teams I know we can compete with.”
It’s just a matter of stepping on the court and battling. And no matter what the win/loss record says about this Lewis-Palmer team, it is certainly ready for battle.